“Dead Man’s Cell Phone” is a new off-Broadway play, that’s getting great reviews and which apparently raises a few interesting ideas about our relationship with mobiles.

The idea behind the play is that a guy drops dead (after musing “Where have all the phone booths gone?” - take note, Old Navy), after which his mobile starts to ring and ring. It’s answered by a young woman sitting nearby, who has a whole new set of experiences as a result.

One of the interesting themes to me is the idea that we can live on in a funny kind of way via voice mail. How spooky would it be to listen to a recording of a dead person asking you to leave a message? In fact, the dead man’s mother only really accepts that he is in fact dead, when his phone eventually gets cut off and stops working.

If that’s just too damn philosophical for a Thursday, I thought I’d tell you a little story about Marilyn Munroe, as I was reminded of it by another line in the play about how loud one of the actress’s hiccoughs are. Nothing to do with mobile, but I thought you’d be amused.

Playwright, Arthur Miller took his new bride-to-be, Marilyn Monroe to meet his mother in her tiny New York apartment. The walls were so thin that when Marilyn used the bathroom she was worried that everyone might hear her doing her business, so she turned on the taps to drown out the noise.

The next day, Miller rang to ask his mother what she thought.

‘She’s sweet,’ said Mrs Miller of her future daughter-in-law. ‘A wonderful girl. But she pisses like a horse!’